People's Democracy

The CPI(M), Delhi State Committee has issued the
following statement on July 16, 2009:

The CPI(M), Delhi
State Committee condemns the utterly callous attitude of the Delhi state
government to the unabated rise
in prices of foodstuffs in the state. The prices of dals and
vegetables
are going through the roof, causing untold hardships to lakhs of wage
earners
and poor. The prices of arhar dal have almost doubled over the
past one
year, from Rs 44 per kg to Rs 80 per kg. Other dals like masur,
urad
and rajma have also gone up steeply. The prices of sugar have
also
doubled in one year from Rs 14 per kg to Rs 28 per kg. The same is true
for
vegetables. This gives lie to the tall claims of the UPA government
about
falling rates of inflation.

Steep
rise in prices of especially dals and sugar is the result of
illegal
forward trading and hoarding by big traders. The Delhi government is squarely guilty
of not
taking any action against these criminal elements. The refusal of the
UPA government
to undo retrograde changes in the Essential Commodities Act made by the
NDA government
is facilitating hoarding and blackmarketeering. The UPA government has
left no
stone unturned to destroy the public distribution system. As per its
norms only
those are eligible to be in the BPL category whose annual family income
is Rs
24,200 or less! Crores of poor in the country have thus been deprived
of cheap
rations. The further emasculation of the public distribution system
through
recent reduction in foodgrain quotas for the BPL and Antodaya
categories and
increase in rates of foodgrains for Antodaya families has made the
situation
even worse for lakhs of poor in Delhi.
This brazen anti-people policy cannot be accepted.

The
CPI(M) therefore, demands:

i.Provision
of dals
at cheap rates through the public distribution system.

ii.Provision
of
sugar through public distribution system to both APL and BPL card
holders.

iii.Reintroduction
of
universal public distribution system to provide cheap rations for all.

iv.Crackdown
on
hoarders and blackmarketeers.

v.Amendments
to the
Essential Commodities Act for removing provisions that encourage
hoarding and
blackmarketeering.